


ice queen's court

by forpuckssake



Series: ice queen [6]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Protective Team, Team as Family, Women in the NHL, but i need to put them somewhere ya feel, most of these little snippets are going to be totally unrelated, mostly little snapshots of elle going through things and struggling to get her shit together, we love girls supporting other girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-04-12 14:25:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forpuckssake/pseuds/forpuckssake
Summary: Outtakes, snippets, and prompts for the ice queen series.





	1. No

**Author's Note:**

> i have like 20k words of unrelated junk in my ice queen document that will never be a concrete story of its own but i'm having too much fun writing elle queen to just leave it alone or delete it so i'm dumping it here in case i want to come back to it (or not, who knows??)
> 
> there aren't any archive warnings for this "story" but i promise to list warnings in the notes if there are any that apply to the specific snippet
> 
> prompts for this series are welcome!
> 
> warnings for this chapter are at the end, so check those first if there is anything you might be sensitive to

One of the first words a girl should learn is _no_.

It would be the first word that they would hear that would make them feel small, like they weren’t good enough. It was a weapon used against girls to let them know that they didn’t belong and that they weren’t wanted.

It would be the first word that would sound like a shield. For her entire a life, a girl will hear that _no means no_ , and that by saying no you can stop bad things from happening to you.

(That is a lie.)

The word _no_ was a word that Elle had heard often, and she would no doubt continue to hear it throughout her life.

(The joke was on everyone else because she wasn’t afraid to use it, too.)

 

* * *

 

 

Kids learn the word no from their parents. No, don’t put that in your mouth. No, don’t hit your brother. No, you can’t have a cookie before dinner.

The first time Elle was ever told no in a way that really bothered her, she was about five years old.

“No,” Calvin’s hockey coach said calmly, scooping her off the ice and gliding back toward the other toddling figure skaters. “Your group is over here.”

Elle stared back across the ice, where Calvin and the other boys were also barely staying on their feet. The only difference between each side of the ice was that one side wore pads and helmets and had pucks and sticks while the other side had none of those things.

She told her parents later that day that she wanted to play hockey instead of figure skate.

 

* * *

 

 

Elle was eight when a boy first tried to kiss her.

She was on the monkey bars, dangling upside down with her braids swinging below her. She could hear the recess monitor yelling at her to stop, to put her hands back on the monkey bars before she fell and got hurt.

Elle let her arms swing lazily below her for a moment before obeying. She turned herself right side up and hopped to the ground, skipping over to wreak havoc on the swings instead.

Another boy from her class noticed her from across the playground and ran after her. “Hey, Elle!”

As an adult, Elle couldn’t even remember the boy’s name. However, she vividly remembered Ashley Jones telling her during lunch that the boy in question wanted to be her boyfriend. Elle recalled wrinkling her nose and saying that she was too young to have a boyfriend.

(Elle was glad that she was sensible enough at eight to understand that boys were gross and always would be. It was probably because she played on a team full of them.)

“Hi,” Elle replied. “Are you going to swing?”

The boy shook his head and looked around for their recess monitor. She was too busy reprimanding another kid for throwing mulch at someone. The boy turned back to Elle.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, leaning forward.

Elle leaned _way_ back. “No,” she said shortly. “I’m not allowed to kiss boys.”

“Why not?”

 _Because I don’t want to_ , she thought even then. 

“My mommy and daddy told me that I have to wait until I’m older,” she replied instead. Even as a kid, she knew that the only way to get any boy to not react badly to rejection was to make excuses.

(She also knew that no excuse would be good enough if a boy really wasn’t a good person.)

“We can swing instead,” she offered. “Or play tag.” She reached out and tapped him roughly on the shoulder before darting away. “You’re it!”

 

* * *

 

 

Elle decided that Carey Price was her favorite hockey player when she was ten.

(Her favorite hockey player changed yearly as a child, but they were always great players. When the Flyers drafted her, she felt like a traitor because of her brief love of Sidney Crosby.)

“That’s dumb,” Calvin said shortly. “There are better players to pick.”

“Like who?” Elle retorted.

“Ovechkin. Laine. Matthews. Crosby.” Calvin rolled his eyes. “ _Anyone_ but Price.”

“But Carey Price is one of the best!” Elle protested.

“No,” Calvin snorted. “He’s not.”

Elle bristled. “He’s better than _you_.”

“Not for long!” Calvin said. “I’m gonna be the best hockey player in the world.”

“No,” Elle chirped back mockingly. “You’re not.”

Their mother had to pry them away from each other shortly after.

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe one could intuit it on their own, but Elle and Calvin didn’t exactly get along when they were very young.

That being said, both Queen twins worked under the same motto: _no one messes with my sibling but me._

(It was a motto that would get Calvin into plenty of trouble for the rest of his life, but that was no one's business but his own.)

Elle was twelve years old the first time someone from another team said something mean directly to her face during a game.

“You’re not a very good goalie,” the little boy said during a stoppage of play. Well, he wasn’t little—he didn’t even look like he should be in the 12U division. He was quite tall for being a kid around her age.

“You’re not very good either, so…” Elle shrugged. Calvin had turned toward her at that point, distracted from the face off that was happening at the dot just to the right of her net.

The boy snorted. “Are you a goalie ‘cause you’re a girl?”

“No,” Elle said patiently. “I’m a goalie because I’m better at it than everyone else on my team.”

“Your team must suck really bad then.”

Elle pointed cheekily at the scoreboard, where they were up by two. “I guess so,” she replied, and he scowled as the puck dropped.

In the next period, he was by her net again. “Is it ‘cause you can’t fight?” he asked. “I’ve heard girls don’t know how to fight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The puck dropped to her left, and so did Elle’s blocker and glove.

(Elle had no clue how to fight, but she had seen enough hockey to know how to throw a semi-decent punch.)

Her hand hurt a lot from where it had connected with the cage, cut by the bits of metal, but Elle had never felt so satisfied. Being ejected from the game did nothing to dampen her spirits.

“You can’t just punch people for no reason,” the ref explained to her, sounding weary.

“I had a reason,” Elle told him solemnly. “He gave me one.”

“Even so,” the ref said, his hand on her shoulder as he skated her back to the bench. “No fighting.”

“Number 47, right?” Calvin asked after the referee had skated away, Elle about to exit the bench area to go to the dressing room.

Elle blinked. “Huh?”

“The guy you punched.”

Elle shrugged. “Dunno, don’t care.”

She wouldn’t know that Calvin had punched him until later, but when she found out, she might have shoved him a little less violently the next time they fought over whose turn it was to take out the trash.

 

* * *

 

 

Elle told a boy no while attending Ridley College.

She was sixteen, and Tyler was the eighteen-year-old captain of the boy’s hockey team. On the surface, he appeared to be nice and charming, and he was really cute, too.

“Stay far away from him,” the captain of the girl’s hockey team, Lindsey, warned. It was a warning that she gave to every girl on the team. “He’s nothing but trouble. He seems nice, but he’s one of the worst people I’ve ever met.”

“He can’t be _that_ bad,” Elle said, rolling her eyes.

Tyler was the first boy to ever show some kind of interest in her. Most boys she knew from back home only saw her as one of the guys, a teammate, and nothing more. Tyler complimented her skills as a goaltender, but he also thought that she was funny, and pretty, and would she like to go out sometime?

“Don’t do it,” Lindsey had said. Her words echoed in Elle’s head even as Tyler smiled charmingly at her.

“Sure,” Elle agreed happily, her heart a fluttering mess in her ribcage.

The thing is, Tyler really _was_ nice. On the surface. For two months he held her hand in the hall, ate lunch with her when they had similar schedules, and would come to her games when his own practices or games didn’t conflict.

Elle thought that she loved Tyler, but really she had loved him for what she knew love to be at the time.

When she had realized that she had failed, Lindsey had grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly right before Elle was meant to meet him after practice for their first date. “Please be careful,” she begged, her eyes worried.

“I’ll be fine,” Elle promised as she withdrew, and she was. For a while, anyway.

She and Tyler would often sneak into the library, heading straight for the back corner that was out of view of the cameras and any snooping students. It was their go-to make out spot, and though they had definitely kissed a lot in their little corner, they hadn’t gone any further than that.

Elle was very determined not to do anything more even as Tyler’s hand traveled from her waist and attempted to go lower.

She grasped at his wrist and pulled it firmly back up, breaking away from his mouth. “No,” she murmured, a little breathless. He was never that handsy with her, and she was a little unnerved by the sudden attention he was paying to her body.

(She could almost hear Lindsey's urgent voice telling her to run.)

Tyler smiled at her, completely unbothered. “Okay,” he said, leaning back down to kiss her.

His other hand started sliding up, nudging between the buttons of her uniform shirt, and Elle broke away from him again. “Tyler,” she warned, “stop it.”

“Calm down,” he hummed, not moving his hand. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Get your hand out of my shirt,” she demanded quietly.

“You won’t even know if you like if until you try it,” Tyler said, and now he was beginning to sound irritated. His hand hadn’t stopped moving upward, and Elle placed both of her hands firmly on his chest and shoved him away.

Tyler stumbled back a few steps, nearly crashing into a row of books. “What the fuck, Elle?” he demanded.

“What the fuck is right!” Elle hissed furiously. “I said no, and you didn’t stop!”

“We’ve been dating for two months and we haven’t had sex!” Tyler snapped back. “All we do is make out. You’re so high maintenance it’s not even worth it.”

Elle stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. At the time, she had been too angry to realize that they might have been tears of hurt, too.

“Don’t _ever_ talk to me again,” she said quietly, fixing her uniform. Her hands shook as she straightened her shit. “If you so much as look at me or anyone on my team, I won’t hesitate to punch you in the fucking face.”

Tyler snorted. “You wouldn’t,” he taunted. “Elle Queen is a good kid who can’t tarnish her perfect record. She thinks being a half-assed goalie with a pretty face is going to get her into the NHL, but we _all_ know—”

Elle took three large steps, reeled back her fist, and let it fly.

(She still had no fucking clue how to fight, but that didn't mean she was about to sit back and take it.)

Tyler yelped as her fist smashed into his eyes, sending his head snapping to the side. He stared at her in shock for a moment, his hand slowly rising to touch the already reddening and swelling skin.

“I said, _don’t fucking talk to me_ ,” Elle said, her voice so quiet and low it was almost scary. Her hand tingled painfully, but she ignored it. “Unless you want two black eyes instead of one, I suggest you _get the fuck away from me_.”

Tyler didn’t look back as he disappeared around a row of books.

Elle sat down in her corner and allowed herself to cry for a few minutes. When she was done, she scrubbed furiously at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, let her breathing regulate, and then she walked back to her room.

Lindsey stared pointedly at her red-rimmed eyes the next day at practice. She didn’t say “I told you so,” even though she had every right to.

“Tyler has a black eye,” she commented instead.

“That sucks,” Elle muttered. “I hope it heals soon.”

Lindsey clapped her on the shoulder. “I don’t,” she said.

Elle let out a shaky breath, feeling her eyes sting with tears. “I’m done crying,” she said, but she wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or her captain.

She refused to look at Lindsey, but her hand slowly moved from Elle’s shoulder to her hair, gently tucking the stray pieces from her braid behind her ear.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Lindsey said when she withdrew. “It’s okay to be hurt for a while, but it’s not the end of the world, I promise.”

“You warned me,” Elle sniffed, blinking rapidly. “You _warned_ me.”

Lindsey shrugged. “This was an important lesson for you, Elle. Now learn from it.”

Elle learned then that people could be a lot like hockey; you could invest your love and time into something, but it might never pay off. Loving hockey was loving something that could tear you down with each loss just as quickly as it could build your confidence with a win. Still, it was a man's sport that could never love and respect you back, not while you had two X chromosomes.

(Tyler, she figured, was the embodiment of hockey.)

“Trust me,” she said blandly, “I think I know _exactly_ what I’ve learned.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next time Elle said no to a boy, she was eighteen and it was directed at Michael Theodore.

“We should be roommates.” It was something he said often.

“No,” Elle said, and Theo would nod and let it go for a while. He respected her decision.

“How about now?” he would ask a day or two later.

“Huh?”

“Roommates?”

“ _No_ , Theo.”

“Gotcha, I’ll ask again later.”

“I’m feeling peer pressure, dude.”

“So you admit we’re peers!”

“I never said we weren’t!”

Elle tried not to let him grow on her, she really did. That first season, Elle thought Michael Theodore was a giant pest. If only she had known at eighteen that Theo would become her best friend and number one confidant.

(And roommate, because even she wanted something great to say _yes_ to, and once she said it she never looked back.)

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, Elle had heard the word no for as long as she could remember, and she had no doubt in her mind that she would continue to hear it for the rest of her life.

She was no longer a baby-faced teenager. She was twenty-three, older and maybe just a little wiser, a little more bold.

Elle was used to hearing the word no come from men, and personally she hated to be told no, especially when the word itself was said in regards to something she couldn’t do. No, you can’t play in the NHL. No, you’re not skilled enough to make it. No, you can’t do this because you’re a girl.

“Do you want to come up to my room?” Elle asked shyly.

“No,” Gavin said to her that night.

And for Elle, it was weird to hear it coming from a man that wasn’t being malicious at all.

She had just met Gavin a few hours previously, since they had spent a good majority of their evening bantering back and forth about hockey. He was a Pens fan, which seemed to be his only major character flaw, but he didn't seem to recognize Elle as a player at all. It was nice to talk to someone without them already walking into the conversation assuming they knew everything about her just because she was an NHL goalie, and Gavin had seemed genuinely interested in her.

“Okay,” she said, trying to hide her embarrassment. She was still hovering over his car, the passenger door opened from where she had just exited. “Sorry for reading this totally wrong, I—”

“Elle,” he said patiently, “I only said no because I don’t want this to be a one night stand. I’d like to take you out on a date.” Hastily, he added, “If that’s okay with you.”

Elle felt a weight lift off her chest. “Yeah,” she said, beaming. “Yeah, that’s more than okay with me.”

Gavin grinned. “Great,” he said, fumbling for his phone in the cup holder. “Here, put your number in. You’ll be in town for a few more days, right?”

“No, actually,” Elle admitted guiltily. She hadn’t reached out to accept the phone. “I’m heading back to Philly tomorrow, so—”

“That’s cool,” Gavin said with a shrug. He still held the phone out to her. “Philly isn’t that far.”

Elle felt like her face might start to hurt soon if she kept smiling. “Okay,” she said, finally accepting the device and entering her number into his phone.

“Thanks,” he said when he took it back. “Just in case I need someone to argue about hockey with, you know?”

“Oh yeah, I get it,” Elle laughed, rolling her eyes. “See you around, Gavin.”

He gave her a little wave and a smile in return. “See you around, Elle.”

Elle closed the car door and did her best not to skip to the front doors of the hotel. She was waiting for the elevator when she got a text from an unknown number.

_Pens >every team_

Elle pursed her lips, amused, and sent back, _except Flyers >Pens and you can't convince me otherwise._

A little frowny face came in a moment later, followed by, _I’ll forgive you… this time_.

Elle stepped into the elevator, practically vibrating with how happy she felt.

(It was the first and only time she could honestly say she was glad to be told _no_.)


	2. cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle Queen is totally a crier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiii i'm back
> 
> not to be spoilery but don't come for me because i totally cried over spilling coffee once 
> 
> also my main bitch theo has returned because i missed him and his friendship with elle is one of my favorite things ever
> 
> i took 'cry' from a prompt list and ran with it because crying is therapeutic (for me anyway, idk about others) and i realized elle had never actually cried before in this series and honestly that girl needs to let it all out because she deals with some shiiiiiiiit
> 
> as usual i'll take prompts or whatever and you can find me at puckthisleague on tumblr
> 
> i make mistakes everywhere and i won't be offended if you want to point them out
> 
> thanks y'all!
> 
> warning/disclaimer: there is a large chunk of this about having a period, but there's nothing graphic about blood or whatever if you're squeamish. for those that might not experience periods, having one is different for everyone and symptoms manifest in varying ways. i took inspiration from my own experiences as well as the experiences of family and friends to write this, so if you find that elle's experiences don't align with your own or mirror what you think having a period should be like, then i'm sorry but it was easiest for me to draw from what i know

Despite what most people thought, Elle Queen was totally a crier.

Movies and popular media depicted girls crying over the most stupid mundane shit. Their boyfriends breaking up with them, not becoming prom queen, and other such petty things were high on the list of things that people seemed to think girls cried about.

Theo learned rather quickly that crying could be caused by a great many of things.

He also learned that he really didn’t like to see Elle cry.

He almost saw her cry when the Flyers backup, Henry Yanez, got her and Aaron kicked out of practice. That had been a whole incident in and of itself. Theo didn’t remember what had started the exchange, but whatever happened had resulted in Elle and Aaron being kicked off the ice, both skating off toward the locker room. Elle’s eyes stared blankly down at the ice and Aaron went seething after her, and Theo whirled on Yanez the moment they were gone and the assistant coach had skated away with an irritated sigh.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demanded, getting right up in his face.

Yanez snorted. “Who the fuck _are_ you?” he snapped back.

“Who the fuck are _you_?” Theo parroted back mockingly. “Are you really so mad because a girl might be better at something than you?”

“I doubt she’s better than me,” Yanez snorted with a roll of his eyes. “Go run some drills, kid.”

“Everyone knows who she is,” Theo taunted. “She’s made national news. She’s going to get her number retired one day because of how great she is, and no one will even remember your name.”

He had felt mean at the time for saying that, but then he remembered the look on Elle’s face when she had turned away from him and felt a little vindicated.

“Bold words coming from a fifth-round pick,” Yanez said with a shrug.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of Elle Queen trending on every platform of the internet.”

Henry Yanez actually laughed in his face. “Look, what’s the point of this? If you want to get into her pants that bad, you might as well just say it to her face instead of showing off when she’s not around to hear it,” he said.

Theo’s vision blurred with red at the edges.

He didn’t remember punching the gigantic douchebag in front of him, but soon enough he was being sent off the ice with blood dripping down his face from a broken nose. Behind him, Henry Yanez had a busted lip and what would turn out to be a gnarly black eye.

Theo saw Elle’s tear-filled eyes dry up almost immediately when she saw him in the locker room, but seeing her on the verge of crying made him wish he had hit Yanez just a little bit harder.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time he saw the aftermath of her crying, _really_ crying, was when they had just moved in together during their rookie season with the Phantoms.

They were eighteen and fresh to the AHL, but Elle was a name that was being said all over the hockey world in general. She was given about as much attention as the top three draft picks were given, but the things being written and said about her were nowhere near as nice.

Theo knew he probably wasn’t supposed to see it happen, but he had gotten up one night to go to the bathroom and he’d heard quiet sniffling from her room.

He paused at the door to the bathroom, frowning at the closed door just across the hall. It was nearly midnight, and they had an early practice in the morning. If he’d been anybody else, he might had gone to the bathroom and then back to his room to sleep.

It was a good thing he was Michael Theodore, former privileged jackass attempting to unlearn all that the world of hockey had taught him.

He knocked quietly on her door. “Elle?”

The sniffling stopped almost immediately, followed by a heavy breath like she was trying to calm herself. “Yeah?” she called back, her voice carefully blank.

Theo hesitated. “Can I come in?”

There was silence, and then, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Theo sighed. “Okay. I’ll be up if you need anything.”

Elle’s laugh was forced and muffled. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Shouldn’t _you_?” Theo countered, and he heard her laugh again. It was much less forced the second time.

“Yeah, probably.”

There was silence once again. “Okay,” Theo found himself repeating. “Goodnight.”

He turned away from her door, but before he could make it back to his room, he heard the thumping of her light footsteps and then her bedroom door swung open. She was in her giant t-shirt for sleeping and her hair was thrown up in a messy bun, which was normal, but her face was blotchy with tear tracks trailng down her cheeks and her eyes were a puffy red.

Elle took a shaky breath, her bottom lip wobbling precariously. “I—you don’t think I’m here just to fill a diversity quota, right?” she asked. “Just to keep girls into hockey and expand the market?”

For a second, Theo saw the defeated looking girl in the elevator after her first AHL lost. He remembered downcast eyes, clenched fists, heated words as she screamed at him. He didn’t like seeing a shadow of that girl still in Elle’s tired eyes at that moment.

Theo frowned. “Whoever said that needs to be fired,” he said flatly. “Men are just angry that you’d kick their ass. Their small brains can’t handle the thought of being beat by a woman.”

Elle’s mouth quirked up into the tiniest of smiles, and Theo knew that he had won. “Men’s small brains can’t comprehend much of anything,” she said.

Theo grinned. “You got that right,” he agreed. “Half the time I have no clue what I’m doing. How do I pay bills? What is doing laundry? Total mystery.”

She stepped into the hallway and grabbed him in a hug. Theo’s arms came up slowly to wrap around her shoulders, hugging her back tightly.

“Thanks, Theo,” Elle murmured into his shoulder. “I love you, y’know?”

Theo felt a satisfied warmth spread throughout his chest. He’d had crushes before, thought girls were hot, even had a few girlfriends in his short teenage years, but the affection he felt for Elle far exceeded any kind of romantic love.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, squeezing tighter. “I love you too, babe.”

 

* * *

 

 

Elle didn’t actually cry in front of him for the first until just three weeks later when she spilled coffee on a lazy Sunday morning at breakfast.

“Fuck,” she said, and then breathed hard.

“What?” Theo asked, frantic as he turned around, scrambled eggs forgotten. He had heard the splosh of liquid and feared that Elle had burned herself. “Are you okay?”

There was a small puddle of coffee on the counter. Elle burst out sobbing.

“I’m sorry!” she wailed between big gulps of air.

Theo turned off the burner. “Please don’t be sorry,” he said, wondering what on earth had set Elle off. Surely it hadn’t been the coffee? “It’s not a big deal, babe, it’s just—”

“B-but I spilled it!” Elle hiccupped, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “And I don’t know why I started crying but now I’m definitely crying because I’m—” She gasped in a huge breath. “ _Embarrassed_!”

Oh boy. Theo was not quite sure how to deal with tears when actually confronted with them. “That’s okay,” he said patiently. “Do you want me to leave the kitchen?”

“No,” Elle huffed, scrubbing furiously at her eyes. “Fuck, I don’t know what my problem is. What the fuck.”

Theo hesitated. “So you don’t normally just go around crying over spilled coffee?”

“Not really,” Elle admitted. “Sometimes I cry if I get honked at while driving. Or if I can’t find my favorite scrunchie.” She sniffed loudly.

Theo wondered if it was rude to ask if Elle was on her period.

(When he brought it up to his mom on the phone later, she politely informed him that he was being misogynistic and owed money to The Jar.)

“Oh, she definitely was,” Owen confirmed when he mentioned the incident to him later on. Elle was babysitting Mac’s kids, so Owen had come over to play some videogames with him to kill some time that afternoon.

“How would you know?” Theo snorted. “You don’t exactly have the bits and pieces to have any sort of firsthand knowledge.”

“I have sisters, dumbass,” Owen retorted. “Sometimes they’ll cry over the littlest things. I think it’s just a girl thing.” He shot at Theo’s character on the screen. “Whatever you do, though, _don’t_ ask her if she’s on her period. Just agree with whatever she says and deal with the consequences later.”

“I dunno, man, maybe she was just super emotional this morning?” Theo offered. “She’s spilled coffee before and never reacted like that.”

“ _Period_ ,” Owen repeated. “Trust me, I’m an expert on girls.”

Somehow, Theo doubted that a nineteen-year-old boy had any clue about girls and their menstrual cycle, despite being the middle child between two sisters.

In the end, he figured Owen was correct. Elle spilled coffee a few days later and sighed tiredly but didn’t cry as she cleaned it up. Nearly a month after she had cried over coffee, she cried during practice because she missed a fairly easy shot.

(Travis had never looked so distraught over scoring on her. “What kind of father am I?” he lamented later on.

“A bad one,” Nolan replied cheerily.

“You’re literally childless,” Carter sighed. He definitely didn’t get paid enough to deal with their captain.)

A month after that, Owen’s theory was confirmed.

“Theo,” Elle sniffled, her eyes watering. “Can you do me a favor?”

Theo looked up from his phone. He no longer grew worried when he saw her tearing up during the third week of the month anymore. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Can you promise not to get embarrassed?”

“I don’t embarrass easily, babe.”

“You can totally say no.”

“I know that.” He wouldn’t, though.

Elle took a deep breath. “Could you go get me a box of tampons?”

Theo blinked. “That’s it? You made it sound like you were about to ask me to assassinate the president or something.”

Elle rambled on. “I'm out and I’d do it myself, but I feel like I’m being stabbed and going to vomit at the same time and—”

"You don't have to convince me, babe, I can run to the store real quick."

She paused. “Wait, so you’ll actually do it?”

“I mean, yeah,” Theo agreed easily. “But I have no clue what to get. Isn’t there more than one brand?”

“Yeah, but I can show you the box,” Elle said. She frowned at him. “You’re really okay with doing this?”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” Elle mumbled, shrugging. “Guys are usually squeamish about my period. When I was, like, twelve, I started my period once during a game and my entire team freaked the fuck out afterwards because I had blood all over my pants after and—”

“Elle,” Theo gently interrupted. “It’s fine. What do you need me to get?”

She showed him the box, which he took a picture of, and when he returned later with her feminine products, he also had chocolate in hand.

Elle cried over that, too, and Theo accepted that he would never quite understand her. He passed her the box of tissues anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Elle cried when she made the starting roster for the Flyers.

They were not happy tears.

Of course, watching his best friend pack up her things was hard. She tried and failed not to cry as they packed up her things together, and Theo had to pretend that he wasn’t just as upset to see Elle go as she was to be leaving.

He knew she had to, though. Elle was meant for bigger things than the AHL.

He opened the cabinet one morning to see a coffee mug Elle had forgotten when she moved out just a few hours before. He closed the cabinet just as quickly, and did his best not to cry, too.

 

* * *

 

 

Being without Elle was weird. There was no one to complain about getting up early. His morning runs were quiet. Bahama Mama smoothies didn’t taste as sweet when drunk alone.

Theo watched Elle’s first official rookie season game on TV and texted her his encouragement, but he wanted nothing more than to be there when she took to the ice. He was happy and upset at the same time—happy because his friend was living her dream of playing in the NHL, but sad that he was not there to experience it with her, and that they were still in the same state but farther apart than ever.

The Flyers made the playoffs in the third spot of the metro division, and the Phantoms just barely scraped by themselves. Elle texted him congratulations when she heard the news.

She called him a few weeks later, crying after the Flyers’ loss in a game seven first round exit.

“I really thought we could go somewhere,” she sniffed. “I feel like I let them down somehow.”

Elle had played in one playoff game, the very first of the series, which was a win.

“You did all you could,” Theo told her calmly. “Next year. I feel like it’s yours.”

 

* * *

 

 

Theo made the starting roster the following season.

Elle cried, of course.

“Hey, Theo?”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t it funny that I can pester _you_ to move in with _me_ now?”

Theo had never smiled so wide in his entire life.

 

* * *

 

 

Once, they won the Cup together.

Elle held the Cup up high as she took her lap, and then handed it off to him with tears running down her cheeks. Theo didn’t hear anything over the roar of the crowd as he skated with the Cup, the biggest achievement he could ever hope to receive in his hockey career.

He turned back toward the rest of the Flyers, most of them still screaming cheering. Aaron had his arms thrown over Elle and Travis’s shoulders, grinning ear to ear.

Elle, of course, was still crying.

Theo didn’t like to see Elle cry, but he had never seen her look so happy while doing it.

“We did it!” she screamed over the roar of the crowd.

In the back of his mind, Theo saw a defeated girl in an elevator, seething with rage. In front of him stood the Ice Queen, and even crying, she was the strongest person he knew.

“Yeah,” he murmured, squeezing her tight. “We did.”


	3. brittany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've got some easy breezy beautiful brittany for yall today 
> 
> i have no idea how recruitment for undrafted players happens so dont come for me please i did my best
> 
> WARNING: so like some family relationships are not always the best. there's nothing physically abusive, but there is reference to emotional abuse as well family members being unsupportive. if that is something that is potentially triggering for you, it might be best that you not read this one.
> 
> you can find me as puckthisleague on tumblr if you want to send prompts or scream about hockey or whatever! enjoy and thanks for the continued support <3

**December 12, 2021**

 

* * *

 

There was nothing quite like the cold comfort of an empty rink.

It was dark but also so, so bright, with lights shining just onto the white ice. It used to hurt her eyes during early morning practices when she was younger, but it was what Brittany lived for now.

It was grounding to skate along the colorful lines of team names and red lines and blue lines, the soft _shnk_ of skate blades over white and then color. There was a story in the ice, an entire history behind the team name and design etched underneath. Brittany used to skate at the rec center that was home to South Jersey Sabres and dream of different NHL team logos on the ice she skated on. It was a dream that had seemed very far away, at the time .

The ice was smooth from the last run of the Zamboni that evening when Brittany was ending her shift at the rink after an open skate. Her job was to hand out smelly old skates from behind a counter and then spray them with Lysol when they came back to her an hour or two later, or handing out the occasional ice pack to a crying kid that had hit their knee just a little too hard. Sometimes her shifts were long and boring, but she especially loved the nights she was on the closing shift and Stacy would pretend not to notice as she shuffled off to the ice in a pair of skates that were not her own.

Sometimes, Brittany would skate lazy laps around the ice just to feel the cold rush of wind blow her hair away from her face, making her cheeks turn pink. Occasionally she would walk through her figure skating routines because it was what her mom would want, gliding gracefully along an arc with her leg outstretched straight behind her and her arms out like she was flying.

Most of the time when she sneaked out to the ice, though, it was with a stick and puck she stole from her brother’s car before going into work.

Brittany would set up cones and run stickhandling drills or skate back and forth at top speed between the lines with the puck on her tape, the thrill of adrenalin shooting like hot liquid through her veins even as the air around her prickled cold against her exposed skin.

On nights when she would take to the ice with the stick and puck, Stacy would often approach the glass and bang on it loudly to get Brittany’s attention as she panted for breath on the ice after a set of drills.

“Time to go, B,” came her coworker’s muffled shout.

Brittany stacked up the cones and put them where they were meant to be, and she took her sweet time skating toward the door. She glanced toward the empty stands where her mother sat through her brother's games, but never Brittany's.

Stepping off the ice was always the hardest part, and her daydream of NHL logos on the ice seemed further away with each step she took once her skates were on solid ground.

 

* * *

 

**September 2018**

 

* * *

 

Brittany had participated in both figure skating and hockey for as far back as she could remember. There were pictures of her in sparkly outfits with tiny medals around her neck and flowers in her arms, but there were just as many pictures of her and Matt in their basement playing ball hockey with tiny plastic sticks.

There was a sad kind of progression in their family photos. The amount of figure skating photos of Brittany increased while her presence in hockey related photos slowly decreased until most of the time it was Matt taking up entire sections of photo albums with trophies and medals in gear that he was finally starting to fill out.

Attending two early morning practices was beginning to take a toll on Brittany, and by the time she was thirteen her mother was making her choose.

“You can’t keep doing both, Brittany,” her mother said sternly. “Your grades will start slipping. Figure skating or hockey, but not both.”

The big problem was that Brittany loved both figure skating and hockey. It didn't matter whether she had on pads and a helmet or sequins and crystals so long as she could be on the ice, but even she had to admit it was beginning to be a little much. Both took up a lot of time, and she had always known in the back of her mind that she would one day have to choose.

She pretended she was stepping onto the ice of an NHL rink, so Brittany knew what she wanted. There was an emphasis on which her mother preferred, though, and Brittany was like any other girl that wanted to appease her mother.

"I'll quit hockey," she said, and the words tasted bitter and wrong in her mouth.

 

* * *

 

“Why don’t you come to practice anymore?”

Brittany had just left the ice after a long 6AM practice to find that the U-14 hockey team had arrived, lugging their large bags off to the locker rooms to change.

While the girls from her figure skating practice were slipping silently by, most of the boys she played hockey with had stopped right behind their captain to hear the explanation.

Jorge Barrientez was a tall, imposing figure, even at fourteen. He wasn’t the best skater or even the most talented player, but he always had something encouraging to say. He was someone who had never failed to accept her presence on the team, even when they were little kids and the number of girls on the team had dwindled to one.

It was zero now, she remembered. She wasn’t part of the team anymore.

“I didn’t sign up this season,” Brittany said. She felt out of place in her leggings and pristine white skates while the boys all stood around in their sweatpants and slides, about to put on gear that was sweaty and dirty and probably hadn’t been cleaned in at least a month.

Jorge frowned. “Why?”

Brittany shrugged, and hunching uncomfortably at the question. “My mom told me to choose this or hockey. I chose this.”

Jorge looked unconvinced. “Matt didn’t quit,” he said.

Matt was on the U-16 team only. He hadn’t been a figure skater as well; he had never been pushed toward it like Brittany had.

“Matt didn’t _have_ to.”

Jorge stared her down. “Neither did you.”

Brittany thought about her mother’s prodding and general distaste for hockey whenever it involved her daughter. Mrs. Zaczek was always in the stands cheering Matt on with the same amount of enthusiasm as any other hockey mom, but she was also the same mom that watched Brittany with the kind of impassiveness that displayed just where she stood on the subject of her daughter playing the same sport.

“Yeah, I kind of did,” she muttered after a moment.

She could feel the eyes of the other boys on her. They had supported her since they were all just five years old and starting out with the same general lack of knowledge, barely understanding how to put one skate in front of the other. They had never had the time to focus on the fact that Brittany and the other couple of girls were any different from the rest of them.

“No,” Jorge said firmly. “No, you really didn’t.”

 

* * *

 

Brittany took the bus to practice the next time, lugging her skating bag and her hockey bag along with her. Her mom couldn’t stop her from doing both if she didn’t _know_ , after all.

Besides, she’d take a hundred disapproving looks from her mother in exchange for the big grins and cheers Jorge and the rest of the team directed at her when she stepped onto the ice with her pads on.

 

* * *

 

The deception didn’t work for long, of course, and Brittany knew it wouldn’t. Still, she hadn’t quite expected the fallout around its discovery, either.

When she got home one Saturday she had a bruise on her cheek, just underneath her eye from a bad check during a practice game from friendly fire. Her teammate had apologized profusely, of course, but the damage was done.

“You’ve been lying to me for _how_ long?” her mother demanded.

Brittany had been taking the bus and hiding her gear in the garage beneath her dad’s old golf equipment for almost two months at that point. She saw no point in lying now that her ruse had been discovered. “Pretty much all season,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and calm.

“I thought you were over this whole hockey phase, Brittany.”

“I’m not,” Brittany said, taking a deep breath. “And I don’t think I ever will be.”

 

* * *

 

Her mom didn’t talk to her for weeks afterwards, and being ignored hurt worse than the bruise on her face did. Her dad tried his best to mediate between his wife and daughter by telling Brittany that figure skating looked more fun anyway. It only made her feel worse that her father couldn’t be bothered to support her wants in favor of appeasing his wife instead.

Matt found the whole thing rather ridiculous.

“You’ve only got one stick left,” he observed one morning.

The U-16 team had practice right after Brittany’s team did, so they passed each other every practice. Matt hadn’t said a word to their mom the entire time about Brittany still practicing with the team, so in a way he had lied by omission. He wasn’t being ignored like she was, though, so it was clear where they stood in terms of being their mother’s favorite.

“I guess I’ll just have to make it last,” she shrugged.

 

* * *

 

Brittany came home the next day to find a stick leaning against the wall next to her bed.

The next time Matt snatched the TV remote from her, she hit her brother a little less violently in retaliation.

 

* * *

 

**2019**

 

* * *

 

With her mom flat out refusing to pay for her hockey equipment, Brittany had to take matters into her own hands.

She couldn’t just expect Matt to get her a new stick when she needed one, or buy more tape or new skates or whatever she needed.

Brittany got a job at the rink as soon as she turned fourteen, and the owners paid her by giving her the funds for what she needed to play hockey. Registration fees for the season, new skates when she outgrew them, new laces when they snapped, rolls of tape, sticks—she worked for all of that while continuing to figure skate and play hockey at the same time.

She took to the ice in her sequins and sparkles for competitions, but she could no longer see NHL logos on the ice, nor could she picture the blaring lights in her mind. The music for her routine began to play and she saw her mom’s stony face in the audience.

Four more years until she was eighteen, she thought, and steeled herself.

Four years. She could do it.

 

* * *

 

**2020**

 

* * *

 

Brittany got an official job at the rink as soon as she was legally able at fifteen, and all her paychecks continued to go toward hockey. She got up early in the morning for practices before school or on Saturday mornings, going from figure skating to hockey practices, and after school she went straight to work or games most evenings.

She practically killed herself to do everything, between work and hockey and homework and figure skating. She often found herself wishing she could quit figure skating, but she knew participating in that was the only thing that made her mother able to stand looking at her most days.

If she were a little more bold, Brittany would tell her mom that she was quitting figure skating and disregard the consequences. A braver Brittany would take the yelling and the disappointment and it would fuel her to do better just to prove her mom wrong.

Brittany was not that bold, though. Not yet.

 

* * *

 

Brittany went home each night with new aches and pains, but she was becoming stronger even underneath all the bruises. She scored lower and lower in her figure skating competitions—she no longer looked lean and graceful, but bulky with muscle. It was never what the judges were looking for.

(Her mother did nothing to hide her disappointment. Brittany got better at hiding how hurt that made her feel.)

In hockey, she excelled. She moved the fastest out of all of her team, skating with speed that Jorge would laugh at and swear could rival McDavid’s.

("You're faster than the wind," her coach often joked. "Like a breeze.")

She pulled spins out of nowhere to avoid checks and leap over fallen players like it was nothing to chase down a puck, so while figure skating continued to make her tired and take up a lot of her time, there were some benefits. Her bruises were becoming less and less after games and practices, so Brittany counted that as a win.

There were stretches of time that her mom completely ignored her, and while it had certainly hurt at first, Brittany soon found she preferred it that way. The cold of an ice rink was somehow warmer than her mother’s cold shoulder, and she accepted that the only person’s happiness she was responsible for was her own.

 

* * *

 

**2022**

 

* * *

 

When she was seventeen, a scout attending a tournament invited Brittany to try out for their women’s team.

Her mother refused to drive her out of spite. Matt, who was home for break after his third semester at North Dakota, was livid.

“What kind of mother _are_ you if you won’t even drive your own daughter to a tryout?” he demanded.

“The kind that pays for your gear _and_ your car so I would watch it if I was you,” she snarled back.

And maybe her mother was emotionally abusive, but Matt had somehow managed not to turn into an emotionally stunted asshole. It was her brother that packed Brittany into the car the night before her tryout and drove her all the way up to Boston University.

They slept in his cramped car in the hours leading up to the tryout, and Matt put a firm hand on her shoulder right before she was about to head into the building.

“Get the full ride,” he ordered.

Brittany nodded once and proceeded to do just that.

 

* * *

 

**June 2023**

 

* * *

 

That summer, Brittany turned eighteen.

It was the same summer that Elle Queen was picked in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL entry draft.

She spent the first few weeks of the summer listening to her mother rant about how women had no place in hockey and how Elle Queen’s career could only end in disappointment or disaster.

Brittany saw the interview, though. She made sure to turn the TV up extra loud so her mom could hear it all the way from the kitchen when Elle Queen snarled at a reporter, “Tell me where women do and don’t belong when men stop telling women what to do with their bodies even though they’re not the ones that experience periods or pregnancy or abortion, or when they have to deal with someone telling them they don’t belong in a sport that they’ve _spent their_ _entire life playing_.”

Her mom screamed at her to turn the TV off. Brittany turned it up louder, wondering when she would have the courage to say the very same things to her mom.

 

* * *

 

When Breezy stepped onto the ice for her first practice as a member of the Boston University women’s hockey team, she envisioned NHL logos on the ice for the first time in a long time.

 

* * *

 

Her mother never went to any of her games.

When Breezy would return home for breaks, the topic of hockey was very consciously avoided in their house. Even Matt never mentioned hockey unless he and Breezy were alone.

And, well, that was alright. Breezy didn’t need her mother to support her decisions to know what she wanted, and what she wanted felt so close she could practically taste it.

 

* * *

 

While Breezy was very excited about completing her biochemistry degree, she was even more thrilled to be playing hockey almost full time. She didn’t have to worry about sequins and leotards anymore, and while she was grateful for all the skill she had picked up as a figure skater, she was also very happy to leave that part of her life behind her.

She was determined that it would all be worth it in the end.

 

* * *

 

**2026**

 

* * *

 

Breezy was approached by a man when she was in her last year at university.

“Brittany Zaczek?” someone as she and her teammates were leaving the rink after a home game.

Now, she normally would have found it very creepy to be approached randomly by a man out of nowhere, but she had seen him in the stands for their last couple of games taking notes on a clipboard. She waved off her concerned teammates and they backed away, but she could still feel their eyes even as the man held out a hand.

“Phillip Olson,” he introduced. “That was one hell of a game you played.”

Breezy had scored twice and gotten an assist, so she had to agree. “Thank you,” she said, shaking his hand in return.

“I work with the Washington Capitals for recruitment,” he went on, and then proceeded to hand her a card that he had seemingly materialized from nowhere. Hockey magic, probably. “We’re very impressed by the way you play, Ms. Zaczek. We would love to invite you to a formal tryout.”

Breezy felt like the whole world was contained within the rectangular business card she held within her suddenly shaking hands. “I—when?”

“When are you available?”

“I don’t have any games next weekend.”

“Perfect. Just email me at the address on that card and we will get a flight and hotel accommodations all set up for you,” Phillip said cheerily. “We look forward to seeing you, Ms. Zaczek.”

 

* * *

 

Breezy emailed Phillip as soon as she got back to her room that night.

The next morning at practice, all she could picture was the Capitals’ logo on the ice.

 

* * *

 

The Pittsburgh Penguins signed a player from another university, a Canadian woman by the name of Allison Lampman, the same day Breezy was boarding the plane to Washington, DC.

Breezy was signed that very same weekend, and she headed back to Boston with the knowledge that all her hard work had paid off.

 

* * *

 

The news broke a day later, and while Matt was not the only one blowing up her phone, he was the first one she responded to.

“What the fuck,” was the first coherent thing out of his mouth. What followed was a bunch of gibberish and excited yelling too unintelligible for Breezy to really grasp any of what was being said.

“That’s basically how I reacted, too,” she snickered once he had calmed down.

“This is great,” he said. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks, Matt,” she hummed. “I’m glad someone is, at least.”

Matt paused. “Has Mom—?”

“No,” Breezy said. “And I don’t think she’s going to.”

“Well, that’s alright,” Matt went on quickly, almost as if he knew she was about to be sad and mopey. “I’ve got enough pride for the both of us.”

Breezy smiled even though he couldn’t see her face. Matt had always been kind of an asshole by nature, as a man, but she was grateful to have someone in her life that supported her with and without hockey.

“By the way, now that you’re going to be a hockey star, you owe me a stick,” he said, and Breezy forgot all the nice things she had been thinking about him.

 

* * *

 

The rest of Breezy’s senior year was bittersweet.

Her team lost the championship, but there were other things to look forward to. She was graduating with a 3.8 GPA and a degree in biochemistry, of all things, and she was signed to begin playing for the Washington Capitals organization at the start of the 2026-2027 season.

Her mom and dad showed up with her brother to watch her walk across the stage, and they still avoided talking about hockey. It was disappointing, of course, but getting what you wanted often came with a cost.

It was fine, anyway. Breezy didn’t need people in her life that didn’t want to support her completely, and though she wished she could go back and tell thirteen-year-old Brittany that she didn’t have to spend her time trying to appease people that would never be completely happy with her anyway.

“When should we expect you home, Brittany?” her mom asked after her graduation ceremony.

“I don’t think you should be expecting me at all,” Breezy said, and she found a sick sense of joy in the way her mother’s lips twisted unpleasantly. “I’ve got hockey to play.”

Her mother scowled. “When will you give up on this stupid fantasy?” she demanded. “You’re not going to be a hockey player, Brittany. You won’t last a single season.”

“It’s funny that you think you know how long I’ll last when you haven’t seen me play since I was thirteen,” Breezy said sweetly.

She could see Matt grinning out of the corner of her eye while her father stared on in shock. She had to pointedly avoid looking at her brother if she wanted to resist the urge to burst into laughter.

“You’re going to get _hurt_ ,” her mother argued.

“Thank you for deciding to care all of a sudden, but you’re, I dunno, almost ten years too late, I think?” Breezy shrugged. “Sorry, Mom, but you didn’t pay for me to go to school, or to play hockey. _I_ did that, all without your help or _care_.”

“Do you realize how ungrateful you sound?”

“Do you realize how ridiculous _you_ sound?” Breezy shot back. “Get over it. This is my life now. I’m flying to DC tomorrow because I signed a contract to play professional hockey. You can either support me or stay out of my way.”

“Maybe we should head back to the hotel, dear,” her dad piped up, grabbing at her mother’s shoulder. “We need to get sleep tonight before the drive back to Jersey tomorrow.”

“You’re going to wash out,” her mother seethed. “Women aren’t built for stuff like hockey.”

“Maybe so,” Breezy said. "But _this_ woman was definitely built to _try_ despite being raised in an environment that told her otherwise.”

Mrs. Zaczek stared her down. “I hope you enjoy DC,” she sniffed petulantly, “since there won’t be any space for you back in Jersey if you can’t hack it.”

It was funny, and Breezy had to force back a laugh. She had moved all of her possessions out of her parents’ house the last time she was home expecting the very reaction she was receiving. She had hoped her parents would come around with the news that she had actually been signed, but there were only so many times Breezy could be disappointed before she just became used to the way her parents acted.

“I intend to enjoy every moment,” Breezy promised.

She had a flight to catch to DC the next morning, and her dream of skating over NHL logos was about to come true. It couldn’t get much better than that.


End file.
